Betrothed

by Lola White

  He sent the magic to pulse between her legs, sweeping under the hem of her skirt and over the dampening fabric of her panties. It hummed over her clit, circled her opening and plucked at nerves that only came alive under his touch.

  She sent her hands wandering over his chest, scraping her nails through the light mat of hair that so fascinated her. She tested the resiliency of his muscle, the texture of his skin, before dipping her head to taste him. Clean, slightly salty, a taste uniquely his own spread over her tongue, delighting her taste buds.

  She reached farther, groping for the button at his waist. He caught her hand.

  “No, Georgie, not this time.”

  Not the words she wanted to hear. She reared back, prepared to fight for what she wanted. She wanted his cock in her hand, in her mouth. She needed it, needed him, had to have him wrapped around her, filling her until everything else was obliterated under the pleasure he poured into her.

  “Yes,” she demanded.

  Searing regret turned his eyes to slate. “You open these pants and I won’t stop. I can’t… Not this time, right now, after…everything.”

  “I trust you.”

  He gave her a pained laugh. “That makes one of us.”

  “Silviu—”

  “Trust me in this, Georgie, you will regret it.” He gave her a quick, domineering kiss that stole her protests and left her struggling to remember why she was arguing with him. “Tonight, my pants stay on.”

  He tugged her hands to his shoulders, waiting until her arms were locked around his neck before gripping her hips. He rocked her against him, pressing hard between her legs, imprinting her with the shape of the hard bulge stretching his pants. Her eyes flew wide as wonderful sensations flowed through her.

  Silviu’s hands were rough as he dragged her over him. His fingers clenched on her hips, shifted to her thighs, slid to her ass. Her skirt bunched under the firm pressure of his fingertips, muting his touch, frustrating her senses. She wriggled and arched closer, trying to force his hands beneath her clothes so she could feel him against her skin.

  She leaned heavily against Silviu’s chest, pillowing her breasts against his hard muscle. His heart pumped against her breastbone as she melded her torso to his and raised her lips in invitation.

  She thought he would take the opportunity to drive deep and conquer, but he surprised her with a leisurely, decadent caress. Slow and supple, hot and wet, his kiss was tactile ecstasy. She slid into the lush embrace without any thought of politics or manipulation and something thick and sweet grew between them, gathering force with every lick and glide, sharing the magic between them, swirling and driving until golden flashes seared the inside of Georgie’s eyelids.

  The kiss went on and on, stretching out, pulling tight with a sultry heat tingling along the surface of the web he wove. She needed more, needed his strength pressed tight against her, needed him to sink into her soul. Needed him to balance her. Georgie slid higher against Silviu’s chest, shifting her legs until her feet were flat to the floor next to his ankles, her knees tucked up tight against his ribs.

  His imprisoned cock hit her core in a direct strike. A heavy pressure that had her body giving way for his, softening and swelling as he slid against her, compressing her folds until they sucked the narrow fabric of her wet panties closer. Rasping against her clit with every shift of their bodies.

  “Magic,” she broke the kiss to gasp. She braced her feet and used her new leverage to emphasize her demand. “I want more.”

  As if she were already a part of him, merged into his being deeper than two people should ever be, she felt the floodgates open inside him. His magic swelled in a terrifying surge, showing her the extent of the power at his disposal. It crashed over her and sent her spinning, dissolving her into nothing more than a vessel for his overflow.

  His calloused palms dove under her skirt, giving her the relief of his heat directly against her skin. Momentary relief, as her nerves immediately sparked with electricity. His hands turned brutal, bruising as he shifted her, gripping her hips, her thighs, her ass. He kneaded and clenched, her muscles jerked with undeniable need, pleasure spearing into them with every hot pulse of his magic.

  He caught her lips again, taking the kiss she’d first expected. He dominated her mouth, claimed her completely. He filled her with magic and it flowed down her throat to twist inside her belly.

  She moaned, arching and bucking, loving the feel of his hardness as he thrust up, tilting his hips at a new angle. Rocked until pressure struck the wet hollow of her entrance. She writhed, rotating her hips, her body asking for more as her mind sank under a golden tide.

  The magic hummed and swirled. It coasted down her belly and licked between her legs. It wriggled into the nearly non-existent space between them and plunged into her pussy. It circled the delicate ring of muscle, already flickering with pleasure, before shooting straight up her core and lodging deep.

  Georgie’s head tipped back. She ripped at her shirt, uncaring of the buttons that flew in ten different directions. She needed him too much. She shrugged her blouse from her shoulders, tore at her bra, sighing when she finally freed her breasts to the golden glow of Silviu’s power.

  And his lips.

  He dipped his head, wrapped his mouth around her nipple and sucked like it was vital to his life. Sharp bliss bit into her. He opened his mouth wider, taking more until her soft, pale flesh disappeared into the hot depths of his mouth.

  He set an intoxicating rhythm that matched the movement between her legs. His cock dragging against her, his magic working into her pussy. Ecstasy climbed higher and punched into her spine, setting her entire body on fire.

  Magic expanded within her, pushing at her slick walls until she was filled beyond imagining. It rippled over her, undulated within her, driving her into the heart of her climax.

  The force exploded from her in gleaming golden waves, sinking into Silviu, only to double back and wrap around her again. Tighter and tighter, higher and higher, it enfolded her and pulled taut, catching her against Silviu’s hard body, pushing her deep into his soul.

  She could feel it through the convulsions that took her. Drawing closer, unifying in spite of everyone’s opposition. The magic wove through them both until they were tied together in a way that Georgie couldn’t challenge. She felt it find all the weak and vulnerable caverns within her, and fill them with Silviu’s composed strength.

  He growled at her breast, heaving against her. The room spun in her pleasure-hazed vision until the floor rose up to meet her shoulders. Silviu lurched over her, tearing at his pants, freeing his thick cock. Georgie couldn’t find it within her to fear him. He could take her now, rip her panties right off, and make the magic complete.

  Steal everything she’d ever wanted with a single stroke.

  His legs slid to either side of her body, trapping hers between. His face set and determined, he shuffled forward, past the temptation of her pussy. He wasn’t going to defy her grandmother’s demands.

  Silviu attacked her mouth and they dove into each other. His teeth tore her lip and Georgeanne bit him back. Copper exploded over her tongue, magic roared around them and Georgie felt as if she was no longer her own. No longer alone within her skin.

  He jerked back with a gasp, lifting his torso from hers. He mounded her breasts, thumbs riding her nipples roughly, renewing her need before the waves of pleasure could ebb. He set his magic to humming inside her pussy, and stroked his cock between the hillocks filling his palms.

  Flesh against flesh, damp with her sweat and his need. She felt every ridge of his shaft, the throbbing pulse. He stroked—once, twice more. His magic licked her clit and swelled in her core. It trailed the pleasure he’d just gifted her with, picking up the ends of the train and shaking it into pillowing roll.

  She came again.

  He spurted over her chest, searing her with his heat and his dominance. His claim officially staked. Brutally intimate, erotically deviant from anything she’
d experienced before, it added a new knot to the ties binding them together.

  She lifted her fingers and smoothed his cum over her chest, dipping into the hollow of her throat, massaging it into her tingling nipples. Her belly twinged, anticipating the day when he’d finally fill her with the warm, sticky mess and the magic between them would solidify into a force that neither could deny ever again.

  He knelt over her, watching, his cheekbones sharp, his eyes molten silver. His chest worked, lungs laboring, his cock only half soft and rising again as her fingers circled her sticky nipples. The sight of him made her hot and reckless, ready to surrender.

  Until he poured ice water over her heart.

  “Fuck, Georgie. You need to go home. Back to Madeleine.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Eliasz

  “And this section, here.” Alexandru poked at the map with a rough finger, nearly tearing the paper.

  “Impossible!” Fredrik’s tone was harried, frustration thickening the air around him. “Eliasz, you explain!”

  Eliasz looked up, momentarily blind to the scene in the office, his thoughts centered on the night before. Images whirled through his mind—Ileana’s pale skin shimmering with a radiance all her own under the warm glow of the lamps in his bedroom, her thick black hair tumbling down to her hips as her head arched back, exposing the vulnerable line of her throat.

  She’d held her body above his, teasing him sweetly, the head of his cock just buried inside her hot pussy. She had shifted and gripped, creamy against him, melting over him. She’d sank down slowly, kissing him with her heat, laughing when his fingers tried to drag her closer, knees braced against his surge.

  She drove him crazy, and he loved it.

  “Hmm?” Eliasz flicked a glance at the map, blinking rapidly. “We can’t give you that, Alexandru. We have twenty families in that area alone. I won’t tell them they’re suddenly under the purview of a different coven.”

  “That’s what I want.” The old man’s eyes glittered like hammered steel.

  “I’m not giving you Slovakia.” Fredrik growled a sound Eliasz had never heard his father make before.

  He jumped in, trying to diffuse the escalating tension. “Alexandru, I can’t give you land my Family lives on. What about the Ukrainian acreage?”

  “It doesn’t have the same resources.”

  Eliasz’s patience frayed. They’d been going through this for hours. He couldn’t budge and Alexandru wouldn’t compromise. They were at an impasse.

  “It’s nearly the same thing, sir. You can certainly appreciate how I can’t give away other people’s homes. I can’t do that to Family.”

  Alexandru raised his eyebrows. “Get them new homes, then the path will be clear.”

  Frustration welled. Eliasz settled back in his chair, studying the old man’s set face. “You have no intention of letting your granddaughter marry me, do you?”

  “Not until I get what I want.”

  “No.” Eliasz shook his head, “Never. It was the same with the Njeles and the Castillos. When will it end, old man? When will you realize you’ve lost all credibility among the Families?”

  “Don’t provoke me, boy.” Alexandru’s voice went lethally soft, the air around him trembling with a cold warning and a hint of magic.

  Eliasz wasn’t impressed. “She’s the only female in your Family and she’s of the primary branch. Witches should be falling all over themselves to have her, but, instead, no one even considers her.”

  “She’s fine where she is.”

  Eliasz gripped the arms of his chair rather than Alexandru’s neck. He had never met a woman more deserving of a strong, powerful union than Ileana. She had more magic at her feminine fingertips than half the Levy men combined. She was beautiful, intelligent and sweet, avoiding the bitterness that all too many women on the patriarchal side of the Schism fell victim to.

  He was determined to give her everything she deserved, even if he had to break every law in the book to keep her. “Where is Vasile?”

  “This is none of his concern! I am the Father.”

  “Where is Costel?”

  “He’s merely a boy.” Alexandru surged to his feet, bending a harsh, calculating look on Eliasz. “You’ll have to deal with me. I am the Father!”

  “Well then, Father Lovasz”—Eliasz also rose to his feet, several inches above the old man, who was beginning to stoop in his old age—“let me explain something.” He let his own magic flicker into being, setting it free from the mental hold every witch perfected when they were teenagers.

  “No, you let me—”

  “I am not an Njele who will bow before a greater magic!” Eliasz snarled. “I am certainly not Raul Castillo, a man of the sixth branch and used to powerlessness. You can’t dangle a carrot in front of me, and not expect me to claim it.”

  “You won’t have her without my permission.”

  Eliasz felt a fierce wave of satisfaction take control of his tongue, unable to halt his words, not even wanting to. “I already have.”

  Fredrik cursed, Alexandru pulled his sagging shoulders straight. “Harlot!”

  Eliasz was in his face before the other man could blink. “Call her that again and the next knife to be conjured in this house will be found in your miserable, dried up black heart.”

  “Eliasz!” Fredrik was aghast.

  “No one speaks of my wife in such a way.”

  Alexandru’s face twisted. “She’s not yours until I say she is!”

  Eliasz smirked. “She was mine the minute she got out of that fucking limo, and if you believe otherwise, you’re more senile than the rumors suggest.”

  It was a low blow. Eliasz knew that Alexandru had heard the gossip sweeping through the Levy Family—which had, no doubt, already found its way to the ears of witches all around the globe. The wind had happily chortled the news to Eliasz and he knew he wasn’t the only one with the talent of listening to it.

  Alexandru’s rage blazed in his face. His eyes glittered, his thin hair shifted as if in a breeze. His sagging jowls quaked as he stomped out of the office, calling over his shoulder, “She is mine to do with what I please, and I shall. We will see who owns her.”

  Apprehensive silence descended for several minutes, until Fredrik broke it with a loud sigh. “I wish you hadn’t said that to him.”

  “You’re the one who encouraged me to take her.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t tell you to antagonize Alexandru with the knowledge.”

  “Then what did you want me to do?” Eliasz turned on his father with angry eyes, frustration eating at him, some niggling anxiety flickering in the back of his mind. “I’ve tied her to me. She wants to be here. I’m not letting her go and I don’t see how telling him my intentions will change anything. She’s mine!”

  “He’s just being stubborn, Eliasz.”

  “He—”

  “I hesitate to ask how things are going.” Daniel’s smooth voice broke into the heated exchange. The Levy Father braced against the doorway, blinking between father and son as they argued. “The house is echoing with your argument, so I know it can’t be good.”

  Irritation overwhelmed him. Eliasz directed the hot mix of fury and fear at Daniel, needing an outlet, wanting concrete answers to something. Needing control in a situation he feared was slipping from his grasp. “Are you Constance’s father?”

  Daniel froze, his eyes narrowing at the impertinence of the question. “No. I would have been twelve when she was conceived.”

  Eliasz prowled closer, watching intently, unrelenting. “There were rumors about you marrying Anne when you were a younger man. Now she’s in your entourage, following you everywhere while her husband—her Magic Match—goes his own way.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Eliasz wasn’t about to point the finger at Fredrik, especially when they hadn’t had a chance to talk about the secret files yet. Eliasz also didn’t want his father to know that he’d been snooping, and he certainly didn’
t want him to know what Silviu and Ileana had been up to in his office last night.

  He flashed his own weakness, instead. “I heard rumors on the wind.”

  Daniel deflated, leaning back against the doorframe as if life was suddenly too much, and he was tired of it all. “I see. Well, you should learn to listen better to the messages you receive. I didn’t marry Anne because it was a ploy my father set up. My grandfather sent her away when he found them together in bed. Constance is my sister.”

  Eliasz cursed. “How is that possible?”

  “A spell that bent the laws of nature.”

  Eliasz rubbed his eyes. “How does she feel, knowing her parents—”

  “Oh, that’s not the half of it.” Daniel shook his head. “Graves Ngozi is about to be her betrothed, and he’s Anne’s husband’s lover.”

  “What?”

  “Warner prefers men. The Njeles and Ngozis have formed an alliance, and I needed a way to stand against it. Warner alone wasn’t enough, I had to follow through with the betrothal my grandfather desired.”

  “Damn.” Eliasz struggled to contain his shock. “How does Constance feel about it?”

  Daniel stared at the floor. “She’s not happy, who would be? But she’s agreed to the match. She’s smarter than most people realize and the secondary branch of the Ngozi Family is quite a bit higher than the rung she’s been forced to occupy within our Family.”

  “It always comes down to power, doesn’t it?”

  “Most of the time,” Daniel agreed. “Few of us can marry for love when it’s our duty to preserve, and hide, the magic. There are still witch-hunts going on over half the globe, and it wasn’t so long ago we were hunted in these parts, too.”

  Fredrik shivered. “We don’t want to go back to those dark days.”

  “No. So, Constance will make the best of the situation and find a way to forge a life for herself.”

  Eliasz ran his hand through his hair. “I thought, with the attacks on Ileana and Georgie… I had wondered if Constance or Anne…”